Diabetes and the Rise of the SES Health Gradient

NBER Working Paper No. 12905Issued in February 2007NBER Program(s): AGHCHE

This paper investigates the salient diabetes prevalence patterns across key SES indicators, and how they changed over time. The investigation spans both the conventional concept of diagnosed diabetes and a more comprehensive measure including those whose diabetes is undiagnosed. By doing so, I separate the distinct impact of covariates on disease onset, better self-management, and the probability of disease diagnosis. Emphasis is given to SES correlates of undiagnosed diabetes and how these changed as those with undiagnosed diabetes plummeted over the last 25 years. I estimate the differential ability by education to successful self-manage diabetes, especially when disease self-management became more complicated.